The Dehumanised ............. and Dogs

In this post I mentioned the curse of dehumanised office-dwelling vandals whose remit it is to devastate everything natural in the countryside. You have to wonder at the amazing way that the world is being turned on its head by economic and managerial forces.

SWT has no employee whose job it is to be constantly present on Blacka. Yet they have the time to devise reams of paperwork suggesting they have utterly lost touch with the world they are supposed to be managing. Another of their traits is obsession with presentation and spin which you can see on their now regularly edited website -edited it should be mentioned to reflect well on themselves and their agenda. A recent click on it revealed the main page regarding Blacka Moor topped by a large picture of Wimble Holme Hill and the area to the south, not Blacka at all. The reason doubtless was their desire to show off heather in bloom. They do now have photos of some of Blacka in other parts - it's taken them long enough. I guess someone's realised that it doesn't do to for people to see more about Blacka on a blog like this one than anything that the so-called professionals can be bothered to produce. Yet here people can see what Blacka is really like. With their web pages you always get the sense there's an attempt to manipulate the perception to what is in their interests.

Another noted change observed is their gradual ratcheting up of the anti-dog messages. Why they should bother about ground nesting birds God only knows: they don't come here often enough to care. Not many years ago they apologised for making discouraging noises about dogs but they've now somewhat changed their tune. The reason dogs are an issue with these very narrowly focused conservation wallahs is that they persist in designing, managing and promoting totally artificial landscapes that appeal to only a certain kind of bird - those that nest in treeless wasteland landscapes where the main justification for that kind of intrusive management is that it provides birds for shooting. Why should it seem fair that someone must not be able to walk their dog here simply so that birds can breed and then get shot after August 12th?  I sometimes think the conservation managements are employing lots of the lesser sons and daughters of landowning aristos, the kind that have been shooting game birds on their estates for hundreds of years and want a good population of them for their future indulgence. They of course always have their dogs with them as others have pointed out. For my part I see dogs on Blacka as fulfilling an important function beyond my own pleasure in meeting them. I like to see the red deer on Blacka remaining wild and that means being wary of canine intruders, the nearest thing to the deer's natural predator, the wolf. Without dogs to alarm them they may get more and more tame and domesticated in behaviour taking away the sense of another wilder world that is the main part of their appeal.